Human Comedy, The

Series of novels by Honoré de Balzac, collectively published 1842-46, which aimed to depict every aspect of 19th-century French life. Of the 143 planned, 80 were completed. These include studies of human folly and vice, as in Le Recherche de l'absolu/The Search for the Absolute, and analyses of professions or ranks, as in L'Illustre Gaudissart/The Famous Gaudissart and Le Curé de village/The Village Parson.